


The Surprise in the Crate

by lwise2019



Series: Mikkel's Story [10]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21562567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019
Summary: The General arranges the delivery of two crates of food, but ...
Series: Mikkel's Story [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536739
Kudos: 9





	The Surprise in the Crate

Lalli had found them a way through the city to the lighthouse, but it was not easy. Twice the tank barely scraped through between a vehicle and a wall, and after the second time, Sigrun jumped out of the tank muttering something in Norwegian which Mikkel did not recognize. Sitting as he was behind Tuuri, he saw her flinch and then slump in dismay. Sigrun hopped back in and announced cheerily, "Well, I really doubted her back in the base" – Tuuri sank deeper in her seat – "but she's done really well!" – Tuuri sat up and started to turn with an eager expression – "She scraped past that Old World thing and there's hardly a scratch on her!" – Tuuri turned away, shoulders slumped once more, and concentrated on getting the tank moving again.

Mikkel frowned but immediately schooled his face to neutrality. He needed to avoid offending Sigrun, though at the same time Tuuri needed encouragement. She was physically the weakest of them all; he'd shaken hands with her on first meeting and knew she was strong for her size, but her size was tiny. Also, of course, she was not immune and a small bite or scratch which the rest of them could survive would doom her to a horrible death. All the same, she was vital to the team: she was their only mechanic – Mikkel could make some repairs if they just involved the application of brute force – and their only driver – Sigrun's file showed her to be able to drive the tank, but her bewildered expression when she was asked to do so implied that whoever made out the forms had made a serious mistake, whereas Mikkel himself had never driven anything more complicated than an oxcart – and she was a skald who could read two languages that Mikkel could not. Mikkel resolved that he would do something to reassure her later.

The causeway to the lighthouse was too narrow for the tank, so Tuuri parked and all the immune team members piled out and started across. When Tuuri jumped out too, Sigrun immediately moved to block her. "Wait in the tank, fuzzy head!"

"Lalli!" Tuuri shouted, followed by much Finnish to and fro. "Lalli says there are no grosslings anywhere nearby," she continued in Swedish.

"Oh, all right. It's on your heads though. Come on!"

As they hadn't broken out the winter clothing yet, the cold and windswept lighthouse platform was a miserable place to wait. Nonetheless, only Emil complained and he merely muttered under his breath, ignored by the rest. It was the scout, of course, who first spotted the sail of their relief ship and pointed silently out to sea while the others cheered.

The ship would not approach, of course. Instead, the crew fired a harpoon sturdy enough to take down a leviathan, driving it quite accurately into the wooden door of the lighthouse, and then used the ropes trailing behind it to ferry over two crates, each on its own small boat. They then cut the ropes as a woman shouted in Icelandic, "Tell your Norwegian _friend_ that if he ever contacts me again I will DESTROY him!"

Sigrun, who knew no Icelandic, shouted back, "Thank you!" while Mikkel chuckled. He knew what that meant.

> "Why do you even want me on your team, and why would the army be willing to transfer a Danish soldier to a Norwegian team?"
> 
> "To answer your second question first, you've thoroughly destroyed your career as a soldier. You have a reputation all the way to the top for insubordination and resistance to authority. Bluntly, the Danish army just doesn't want you anymore. As to your first question, I want you because you're a big, dumb, Danish farmboy." The General chuckled. "... your _face_!" Sobering immediately, he went on, "Put on workmen's clothing, pretend you don't understand Icelandic, and that's _exactly_ what the Icelanders will think you are."
> 
> "Ah ... so I am to spy on the Icelanders?"
> 
> "On individuals. As big as it is, Iceland decides, well, everything. For us as well as them. Some of us think Iceland is excessively cautious, even paranoid, but we can't change their policies or persuade them to change their policies. We can, however, sometimes _persuade_ individuals to ... bend ... their policies a bit. And you will help with that." 

Mikkel opened one crate with Sigrun and Tuuri "helping", while Emil and Lalli took care of the other. Sigrun pulled out a bunch of carrots and sneered, "Really? They couldn't send us some real food?"

As mildly as he could manage, Mikkel replied, "Vegetables are important, Sigrun. Perhaps we won't develop scurvy now." As he spoke, a certain tension in Lalli's stance drew his attention. When something _moved_ in that crate as Emil raised the top, Mikkel responded instantly and instinctively, pushing Tuuri behind him so as to shield her with his body. 

Emil slammed down the lid of the crate, shouting, "There's something in the crate!"

"What?! SHOOT IT!!!" Sigrun shouted, while Mikkel was frozen, his mind working frantically: _A grossling **in** the crate – it didn't latch on as the crate was pulled across – someone **nailed** a grossling into a crate –_

"I ... think it was a person!" Emil shouted back.

"Then DON'T shoot it and let it out!"

Mikkel muttered, "Stay!" to Tuuri and dashed forward. A person who would try to sneak into the Silent World could be even _worse_ than a grossling.

> There is a certain instinct to run after a crowd. This crowd seemed angry rather than frightened, and was running away from the village rather than towards it, so Mikkel followed out of curiosity, assuredly not due to instinct.
> 
> As he jogged up, last of all, he saw that the gate to the Outside was standing open and the hounds which had led the charge were growling and bristling but well-enough trained that they did not cross the Wall. Just to the left of the gate, a man lay face-down in a pool of blood, a stocky, gray-haired man kneeling beside him. Mikkel hurried over, panting, "I'm a ... medic ..." but the older man waved him off, saying sadly, "No use."
> 
> A young woman darted into the guard's hut but immediately ran out, shouting "Broken!"
> 
> The older man looked around hastily, then pointed at Mikkel: "Close that gate! Bjorn, you help him! Everyone else, defensive positions!"
> 
> The gate was well-balanced, or Mikkel's strength, great as it was, could not have moved it even with the assistance of the young man evidently named Bjorn. They pulled at it until it started to move, then leapt quickly out of its way as it swung to with a clang that made everyone jump. Mikkel turned to find the crowd had sorted itself into two semicircles, apparently the non-immunes with their backs toward the Wall and the immunes before them. The hounds-keeper had her hounds back on their leashes and was leading them in a search pattern starting at the gate.
> 
> Mikkel joined the immunes, standing next to the gray-haired man who was clearly the leader and, he saw as he examined the man more closely, also the man he had come to see, Erik Larsson. Larsson glanced over at him and muttered, "Good of you to help us."
> 
> "What happened here?" Mikkel asked, already fearing what he would hear.
> 
> "A murderer." Larsson shrugged uncomfortably. "We'd had questions before – 'did so-and-so come through your village' – and so we suspected there was a murderer around – somewhere – but not in our own village! Not my own cousin Henrik!"
> 
> "How did you find out? I mean, this –"
> 
> "He got greedy, I guess, snatched two women travellers, killed one, but the other got away, hurt, escaped to the village –"
> 
> "I'm a medic –" Mikkel started again.
> 
> "No need, my wife's a doctor. She'll take care of the poor woman. But anyway, we went to his house, tried to catch him, but he'd run for it, killed poor Arvid before we could get here – and now he's in the Outside. Well, he's not immune. It's a worse death than we'd have given him."
> 
> Mikkel shuddered at that thought, but he knew his duty and asked, "Are you Erik Larsson?" At the other man's nod, he added, "I'm told you have an inn and you serve a mighty fine wine."
> 
> Larsson gave him a hard look, then answered, "That I do, and you may want a glass, or four."
> 
> "All of that, and a round for the house," Mikkel answered. With the sign, countersign, and acknowledgement all given, he knew that by morning he'd have the papers he was sent for and would be on his way back to Mora. He had only to wait until the hounds-keeper confirmed that the hounds found no trace of intruding grosslings.

As Lalli, Sigrun, and Mikkel crowded around, Emil lifted the top of the crate again to reveal a very tall, very thin young man with an extraordinarily long, thick, red braid. Sigrun took one look at him and ran for the water's edge, shouting "Wait! Come back! Man overboard!"

The young man asked hesitantly in Icelandic, "Excuse me, is this Bornholm?"

"No," Mikkel answered slowly, "definitely not." The other _looked_ harmless enough, and Mikkel didn't see any sort of weapon. He directed the stranger's attention to the ruined city not far away, studying his face carefully for any hint of danger.

"Ummm," the young man quavered, "I ... I ... I think I maybe got off at the wrong place."

His expression, dismayed and frightened, convinced Mikkel that, whatever strange decisions had led him to hide in a crate, the Icelander was not an escaping murderer. They need not fear him.

"Yes," Mikkel replied, "I believe it's safe to assume as much." More kindly he continued, "What's your name?"

"I – ah – Reynir," the stowaway stammered. "They'll come back for me, right?"

At the same time, Sigrun sprinted up to them shouting furiously, "Move, people! We need to get a message to the base five minutes ago!"

Mikkel tried to calm things down, saying soothingly, "There's no use hurrying, they won't be able to –"

"They better get this nuisance off our hands **today**!" Glaring at Mikkel, she added, "We can come back for the food later." Pointing to Emil, she ordered, "Emil, you're in charge of the prisoner!"

"Aye-aye!" Emil answered obediently while Lalli and the stranger, neither of whom had understood any of the shouting, looked around helplessly, shrugged, and followed Sigrun along the causeway to the tank, Emil marching behind them.

"He's not our prisoner, Emil," Mikkel tried to explain in Danish, the only language he knew which Emil had any chance of understanding.

"Yes, yes, prisoner! I got it," Emil answered, and Mikkel gave up for the moment. Clearly Sigrun, and perhaps also Emil, had heard of murderers fleeing to the Silent World and of course they had not understood anything that had passed between him and the Icelander. Possibly, Mikkel thought suddenly, they had heard of the very murderer, Henrik Larsson, that he had pursued! It had happened in Sweden, after all, and there were very few murders anywhere in the world in the ninth decade of the Rash ...


End file.
